‘PREDATOR’ or

Why drive a vehicle along these roads,

Which has the word ‘PREDATOR’

Emblazoned on it. In large letters,

In a sort-of-aggressive font with jagged edges?

Is it supposed to look like the sharp teeth,

That you might glimpse in the mouth

Of an imagined tiger, or a sudden shark?

Who are you trying to impress or frighten,

When you are only a naked ape

Encased in a movable steel and plastic box?

Not a fierce wild stalking carnivore,

Nor any type of soaring eagle or hawk,

As anyone would see, if you just walked.

But maybe it wasn’t you who

Chose the logo.

Maybe some designer somewhere

Thought that it was a good idea,

Which could sell cars to

Those who believed one scary word

Would designate a striving driver,

On their way up some social pyramid

Or at least some one with

An aggressive intention to ruthlessly rise.

Whilst in others’ eyes

It just shows that

You are a mechanised rat.

 

When you use a plastic claw

 When you use a plastic claw

And kick against friction on the floor

Just to get your socks on

And that’s the morning’s pinnacle.

When the sight of someone walking,

Unaided with sticks or a frame,

Just anyone walking anywhere

And that seems like a marvelous miracle

When putting dead veg on a compost heap

After another restless night’s sleep

Is a epic that’s almost biblical

When your faculties start to fade and fall

One after another like skittles in a line

And you tell yourself that it’s really all fine

Because these things are all cyclical

You could come back another time

As bird or beast or fish or slime

Or go to heaven or hell or nowhere at all

You might then know if myths are mythical.

Waiting for results

Waiting for results

Used to mean

Listening for the letterbox clanging;

And the thud of letters dropping

Onto the doormat.

Some messages still arrive that way

But now it’s more likely to be

Suddenly flashed up on a screen

Flickering suddenly

So you may look twice

To read and believe,

Also it could arrive

With an irritating phone noise

That informs what the diagnosis is,

If the exams are passed

Or who has been elected

And which one fool will rule

Outside

While inside the body

Another disease is named.

MISTAKEN MACHINE

I did not get the drink that I wanted

Out of the vending machine,

So, I immediately concluded

That this was my mistake;

Since a mistake is something

That a machine never can make.

My fumbling fingers are fallible,

Which a machine can never be,

And I know this to be completely true,

Because I need total certainty

In a revolving uncertain world

Which always changes around me,

As I also change and age

And my body fails gradually.

Yet long before this decline began

I was told of an infallible, all-knowing god

But even as a small orphan

I began to doubt his plan

As unanswered prayers

And ominous hints

Failed to convince

That there was any god anywhere

 I shrugged my shoulders

Got drunk and worked away years

As I could not know

And did not care

So, now a machine that makes mistakes

Is the only thing that’s there.

Always too previous,

 Always too previous,

Start to do the next thing

Before the last one is finished

And leaving the one before that undone.

Never happy when I am

Unable to freeze any moment

In the torrent of time.

Before it arrives

It’s only a dream

Then it’s here

And, in a flash, it’s gone;

Only fragments are left

To be reconstructed

In memory whilst

The next possible event

Has grabbed my attention.

But I’m trying to focus on

Whatever could be

Looming up after that

So I try to concentrate

With the attention span of a gnat.

THE LATE WAITING ROOM

I am a patient patient,

In waiting rooms I wait,

With ever increasing anxiety,

In case the waiting room is late.

It might be due for an appointment,

But forgot to set the alarm,

Or missed the bus or the taxi,

Or couldn’t start the car.

It might have go the address wrong.

It might have mistaken the date.

Then I would be aghast

If the waiting room flew past

And I couldn’t wait any more.

I might feel deep frustration,

Alienation or anomie

If the waiting room

That I was waiting for

Hadn’t waited for me.

listening to a history podcast at present

 I put on the headphones

To drown out the news,

I have an information addiction

That I need to feed.

I want to get drunk

On useless detail

To hear byzantine factoids

About Byzantium

To clutter up my brain

With the intricacies

Of the build up to

The American civil war.

There’s no such thing

As enough of this stuff.

I want to find out

More and more and more.

Because it’s done now

 It can’t be undone

And I hope that

This knowledge might

Make me numb

To the numbers

Coming up everyday

On the radio or the computer feed

Forty-four, or seventy-three, or thirty-one

Have died today

So, I use history to hide

From everyday’s genocide.

WILLESDEN CENTRE FOR HEALTH AND CARE

 Is this a strange place to be writing poetry?

Wouldn’t sitting over strong black coffee

In the corner of some bohemian café,

Whilst intense intellectual discussions raged

Be the best place to compose odes?

Shouldn’t I be scripting in my well-worn notebook?

Not scribbling on a torn off piece

Of an egg salad sandwich wrapper,

Resting on a formica table top,

In the echoing health centre café?

Where the very old and very young

And infirm come to eat some

Baked beans fried bread and such

Which doesn’t cost much;

Whilst waiting for bloods to be drawn,

For wounds to be bandaged

For toenails to be cut and filed.

Here where healthcare is still free,

Where they don’t let you

Bleed uncared for

With no one to stop it,

Unless there’s a way to

Turn pain into profit.

 

 

SEVEN VIEWS

1. INDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS

Sit still as statue

In the doorway.

Only eyes move

To observe

The sky above the street.

Cars, vans and

Hyper exploited moped riding

Food bringers

All pass remarked

But unexamined.

Ignore tarmac

And all that rolls there,

Only care

About feathers slicing air.

Notice the different ways

That they beat and glide

Notice, examine and classify

Herring gull, feral pigeon, wood pigeon,

Magpie, ring necked parakeet, crow

Sparrow, goldfinch, blue tit, starling

Maybe even a kestrel, a buzzard

Or a red kite.

Look again to check

Wing shape and flight pattern.

Sit and watch and wait

Until one day spring ends

With a mad high-pitched scream

And a bird that flies like nothing else

Because it always

Flies and nothing else

Swifts.

 

22. CITY VIEW WITH RURAL RADIO

Get up, and it’s either

Raining or not raining’

And the radio broadcasts

The incessant sound of

Farmers complaining.

Sheep bleat in the background,

Cows low, chickens cluck and

The farmers still cry:

Money is scarce

And rivers run dry.

So, agreeing with Marx about

Rural idiocy,

I look out of my kitchen window

Over the Thames valley.

I see the towers and spires

Of the Great Wen

And listen to the dawn chorus

Of the sirens of emergency vehicles

Crying again

And again, and again.

 

3 INTERNAL VIEW

I stare and glare

And think and compare,

But I can’t find it anywhere here.

I try to trap it,

But it eludes the snare.

It’s a hopeless situation,

Like waiting for a whale

In a railway station,

Or crossing the Antarctic

On a toothbrush pulled by giraffes

Or cooking an equation

With brussels sprouts for lunch

Or bisecting a philosopher

With a garden hose appliance

Or writing more rubbish

From a mouldy old brain

That’s too seemingly random

To ever do science.

 

4 VIEW OF THE RUINS OF GAZA THROUGH A SUBURBAN KITCHEN WINDOW IN LONDON

Why this continual wittering

About back garden birds twittering?

About the view from the kitchen window

Sitting up on a hill wondering

When the shopping will be

Delivered to the front door.

When the worst immediate fear is

Defective plumbing

And all the while knowing

Of thousands being driven mad

And killed with fear, fire, bullets,

Starvation and bombing

All the while knowing

And doing nothing.

 

5 VIEW THROUGH A TELESCOPIC SIGHT

One swift circled under drifting rain clouds

Over the rooves of rows of houses.

Over the old man sitting in his doorway

Looking out for omens above his home

And finding none;

Except for the increasing absence of birds

And presence of ugly square buildings

And small private jet planes

Flying in straight lines

To carry the bourgeoisie rapidly,

But not far enough, away.

Usually the old man is a gentle fool

Who takes delight from seeing

Wood pigeons climb and glide,

How finches bob and weave,

How seagulls wheel and scream,

And crows who know

Where they’re going.

He doesn’t object to airliners

Carrying people away

For their holidays,

But when the small private jets

Overfly his road,

He starts to fantasise

About rocket launchers.

 

6 VIEW FROM A HOSPITAL CUBICLE

There is no real view

From this CUBICLE at all

But some clever designer

Has covered one wall

With a photograph of

The Grand Union Canal

And placed another

Of blue sky and clouds

In a ceiling panel

But I doubt if that fooled

Any impatient in patient

In an accidental emergency.

 

7 A VIEW OF A HOSPITAL AS A DATA MINE

The raw data arrives,

Sometimes it walks,

Sometimes it hops,

Or limps on crutches,

Or is wheeled in on wheelchairs,

Or is carried in ambulances,

Or on stretchers.

Then more data is refined

And extracted

By different grades of worker.

Some use thermometers

Needles pressure cuffs

And X-rays.

Some ask questions.

Some make observations,

Then the raw data is sorted,

Sat in chairs,

Laid on beds,

Sent to wards,

Or operating theatres.

Now the workers

Must sit down at screens

And keyboards and terminals

To extract and input

The important stuff

Sweeter than any honey

Made by bees in a hive,

More nutritious

Than any food carried

Into a nest by ants.

Data can be sent to centres,

Processed at vast expense,

Regardless of environmental cost,

And translated into money,

For somebody,

Other than workers or patients.

Tadpoles by post

 The postman rings the doorbell,

Then bangs on the door.

The resident opens an upstairs window.

“I’ll be down to get it”

He shouts, then he struggles

To descend fifteen stairs,

Gripping the banister tight,

Balancing with his walking stick

And placing each foot carefully.

This isn’t fast enough for the postman,

Who bangs on the front door again.

‘Wait!’ The resident says

Before he opens his portal to get

A parcel labelled ‘LIVE ANIMALS’.

Now he must act fast

Before the contents give up the ghost,

For he has just received

Tadpoles by post.

Squawking at each other

Podcasts and Podcasters

Piffle, prattle and rattle

On and on and on

Like dried out peas and beans

Bouncing around inside a tin can

Arguing, hair splitting, nitpicking

Again, and again.

After a short while,

Every topic seems the same.

Although I know

I should value freedom of speech

And this cacophony

Is better than the monotony

Of the authoritarian pompous guff

Which was always pronounced

By someone named Reginald

Broadcast only at the correct times from

The varnished wireless cabinet

In the sitting room.

Now we get a multi-faceted

Continual multi-opiniated mess

Of clanging egotistical gobshite

Noisy Parrots in a cage

Squawking at each other

Whilst the zookeeper

Goes about his business.

INDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS

Sit still as statue

In the doorway.

Only eyes move

To observe

The sky above the street.

Cars, vans and

Hyper exploited moped riding

Food bringers

All pass remarked

But unexamined.

Ignore tarmac

And all that rolls there,

Only care

About feathers slicing air.

Notice the different ways

That they beat and glide

Notice, examine and classify

Herring gull, feral pigeon, wood pigeon,

Magpie, ring necked parakeet, crow

Sparrow, goldfinch, blue tit, starling

Maybe even a kestrel, a buzzard

Or a red kite.

Look again to check

Wing shape and flight pattern.

Sit and watch and wait

Until one day spring ends

With a mad high-pitched scream

And a bird that flies like nothing else

Because it always

Flies and nothing else

Swifts.

anglerfish

A monkfish on the bottom of an aquarium tank

Lies camoflagued on the gravel,

It could be looking at the glass screen

That separates her from the world

And keeps her alive

Though I doubt that

She knows that.

The screen that

I stare at every day

Has shown me what a monkfish is,

What it looks like,

What it does

And that anglerfish is

Its other name.

Now I know how

It can be caught and cut,

And sliced and iced.

Some say that

Its flesh tastes nice.

And that’s not all

That my screen lets me see,

I can see sea, seals,

Seagulls, sealions, sealice,

And long muscular fighting conger eels,

Hooked and hauled up on lines,

From sunken wrecks.

I don’t know

If this tidal flow

Of maritime information

Keeps me as supine

As the anglerfish

Lying on the bottom of my tank

Staring at the screen

But I can tell you this,

My false consciousness

Is full of fish.

grouse

Now I know,

Or imagine that I know

What it feels like

To be a grouse.

Whatever I say

Is no use.

The beaters and dogs

Are moving up behind me.

I feel fear

As they draw near.

Soon I must break cover,

Try to fly

As fast as I can over

The booming

Lead spraying guns.

I’ll have to make a sky run

Launch myself

Get it over

Get it done

As fast as I dare

Through the deadly

Flak-filled air

Beat my wings desperately

And pray that

I don’t get terminated by

Some cretinous plutocrat.

sphere I go

 Like a sphere I go

Here and there,

A spare pillock,

Or an unattached bollock,

That rolls around

Because it’s round

And all there is to do

Is to go wherever

It’s pushed and

Impelled by

The tip of the cue.

Never knowing why

Never having a clue,

Just rotating on something

That’s rotating in space.

A pimple on a pimple

In a place that’s

Not a plaice.

A jellyfish in an ocean

Has much more control.

Like flotsam

Like jetsam

Any tide can carry me by

Wash me up,

Or take me under

Let me breathe,

Or make me drown.

It’s as if I was a human

In a world

Ruled by a clown.

Lilieth leapt the electric fence,

Lilieth leapt the electric fence,

Maybe, at the time, it made sense,

To pounce, claws extended, at a bird in flight,

And so, fall into freedom by accident.

Or maybe she made a deliberate jailbreak,

‘cause you gotta do what you gotta do,

To get outta the zoo.

Who knows what a lynx thinks?

 

But briefly, Lilieth  the lynx got away

And was no longer on display,

She was no longer confined,

To be admired or to be ignored ,

By the curious, the awestruck, or the bored.

Peering through the wire.

 

Perhaps real freedom then kicked in,

With no food and drink provided,

Out in the woods and the fields and hills,

To eat she has to hunt and kill,

And at first maybe she has an edge,

As it must be centuries,

Since any lynx walked and stalked

Along these thickets and hedges,

So maybe some rabbits and mice,

Or a bird or two, turned just too late

And drew their last breaths,

Between the jaws of golden-eyed death.

 

Sadly, hunters can be hunted too,

And Lilieth could not be left to be free,

She was the ‘property’ of a zoo,

And large predators in Britain just cannot be,

Unless they’re members of the bourgeoisie.

 

Uncaught Lilieth caused official fear

Alleged to pose a risk “severe”,

So a killing bullet, not a tranquilising dart,

Was sent to stop this beauty’s heart.

 

But the wheel will turn, and justice will be done,

And free once more,  Lilieth will run,

Padding along on larger paws,

With longer, stronger, deadlier claws,

Reborn a larger, fiercer cat,

 

She’ll rip out the throats of bureaucrats.